Egypt's ruling party to nominate presidency candidate in mid-2011

A senior official of Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) said the party's candidate for presidential elections will be nominated in mid 2011.

NDP will hold a conference in May or June of 2011 to choose its candidate for the presidential elections, said Moufid Shehab, Egyptian Minister of Legal Affairs and Parliamentary Councils and NDP assistant secretary general, in a statement to ONTV satellite channel Sunday evening, according to Egypt's Middle East News Agency report.

Around 6,000 members of the ruling party will take part in the conference to nominate the party's candidate for presidency, the minister added.

Egyptian People's Assembly, the lower house of parliament, passed in May 2005 a major constitutional amendment which allowed more than one candidate to run in the presidential elections for the first time in the country.

Under the amendment, leaders of legally registered political parties could compete in presidential elections, but independent candidates must get the backing of at least 250 elected members of parliament and local councils, including 65 members of the People' s Assembly and 25 of the Shoura Council, upper house of parliament.

Under the pre-amendment political system, the president was not elected directly by the electorate. Instead, the parliament chooses a sole candidate first and then the only nominee is put to a referendum for approval.

On May 28, NDP Secretary-General Safwat el-Sherif said all the party bases are unanimous on nominating incumbent President Hosni Mubarak in the next presidential elections slated for 2011.

Mubarak, 82, took power in 1981. He is now in his fifth presidential term. There has been much speculation over whether or not he will seek a sixth term.

On March 6, Mubarak received a successful surgery in Germany to remove the gall bladder and a benign tissue.

Source: Xinhua